James Harold Kirkup, FRSL (23 April 1918 – 10 May 2009) was an English poet,

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

and

travel writer The genre of travel literature encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs. One early travel memoirist in Western literature was Pausanias, a Greek geographer of the 2nd century CE. In the early modern per ...

. He wrote over 45 books, including autobiographies, novels and plays. He wrote under many pen-names including James Falconer, Aditya Jha, Jun Honda, Andrew James, Taeko Kawai, Felix Liston, Edward Raeburn, and Ivy B. Summerforest. He became a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.

Early life

James Kirkup was brought up in South Shields, educated at Westoe Secondary School, and then at King's College, Durham University. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

he was a conscientious objector, and worked for the

Forestry Commission The Forestry Commission is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the management of publicly owned forests and the regulation of both public and private forestry in England. The Forestry Commission was previously also respon ...

, on the land in the

Yorkshire Dales The Yorkshire Dales is an upland area of the Pennines in the historic county of Yorkshire, England, most of it in the Yorkshire Dales National Park created in 1954. The Dales comprise river valleys and the hills rising from the Vale of York w ...

and at the Lansbury Gate Farm, Clavering, Essex. He taught at The Downs School in Colwall, Malvern, where

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...

had earlier been a master. Kirkup wrote his first book of poetry there; this was ''The Drowned Sailor'', which was published in 1947. From 1950 to 1952, he was the first Gregory Poetry Fellow at

Leeds University , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

, making him the first resident university poet in the United Kingdom. He moved south with his partner to

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

in 1952, and became a visiting poet at

Bath Academy of Art Bath School of Art and Design is an art college in Bath, England, now known separately as Bath School of Art and Bath School of Design. It forms part of the Bath Spa University whose main campus is located a few miles from the City at Newton P ...

for the next three years. Moving on from Bath, Kirkup taught in a London grammar school before leaving England in 1956 to live and work in continental Europe, the Americas and the Far East. In Japan, he found acceptance and appreciation of his work, and he settled there for 30 years, lecturing in English literature at several universities.

Blasphemy case

Kirkup came to public attention in 1977, after the newspaper '' Gay News'' published his poem ''

The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name ''Whitehouse v Lemon'' is a 1977 court case involving the blasphemy law in the United Kingdom. It was the last successful blasphemy trial in the UK. Facts James Kirkup's poem '' The Love that Dares to Speak its Name'' was published in the 3 J ...

'', in which a Roman centurion describes his lust for and attraction to the crucified Jesus. The paper was successfully prosecuted in the ''

Whitehouse v Lemon ''Whitehouse v Lemon'' is a 1977 court case involving the blasphemy law in the United Kingdom. It was the last successful blasphemy trial in the UK. Facts James Kirkup's poem '' The Love that Dares to Speak its Name'' was published in the 3 Ju ...

'' case, involving the editor Dennis Lemon, for blasphemous libel under the

Blasphemy Act 1697 The Blasphemy Act 1697 (9 Will 3 c 35) was an Act of the Parliament of England. It made it an offence for any person, educated in or having made profession of the Christian religion, by writing, preaching, teaching or advised speaking, to deny ...

, by Mary Whitehouse, then Secretary of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association.

Poetry

After the writing of simple verses and rhymes from the age of six, and the publication of ''The Drowned Sailor'' in 1947, Kirkup's published works encompassed several dozen collections of poetry, six volumes of autobiography, over a hundred monographs of original work and translations and thousands of shorter pieces in journals and periodicals. His skilled writing of ''

haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a ''kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a ''kigo'', or s ...

'' and ''

tanka is a genre of classical Japanese poetry and one of the major genres of Japanese literature. Etymology Originally, in the time of the '' Man'yōshū'' (latter half of the eighth century AD), the term ''tanka'' was used to distinguish "short p ...

'' is acknowledged internationally. Many of his poems recall his childhood days in the north-east, and are featured in such publications as ''The Sense of the Visit'', ''To the Ancestral North'', ''Throwback'', and ''Shields Sketches''. In 1995, James Hogg and Wolfgang Görtschacher (University of Salzburg Press / Poetry Salzburg) received a letter from Andorra signed by Kirkup, who had just returned from Japan. Kirkup suggested the republication of some of his early books that had been out of print for quite a while. At the same time he wanted to offer new manuscripts that would establish the Salzburg imprint as his principal publisher. What started in 1995 with the collection ''Strange Attractors'' and ''A Certain State of Mind'' – the latter an anthology of classic, modern and contemporary Japanese haiku – ended after more than a dozen publications with the epic poem ''Pikadon'' in 1997. His home town of South Shields now holds a growing collection of his works in the Central Library, and artefacts from his time in Japan are housed in the nearby Museum. His last volume of poetry was published during the summer of 2008 by Red Squirrel Press, and was launched at a special event at Central Library in South Shields.

Bibliography

Poetry

*''The Drowned Sailor'' (1947) *''The Submerged Village and Other Poems'' (1951) *''A Correct Compassion and Other Poems'' (1952) *''A Spring Journey and Other Poems 1952–1953'' (1954) *''The Descent into the Cave and Other Poems'' (1957) *''The Prodigal Son, Poems 1956 – 1959'' (1959) *''Refusal to Confirm Last and First Poems'' (1963) *''No Men Are Foreign'' (1966) (though was composed in 1966 but was the first in his collections of poetry) *''The Caged Bird in Springtime'' (1967) *''White Shadows, Black Shadows: Poems of Peace & War'' (1970) *''The Body Servant: Poems of Exile'' (1971) *''A Bewick Bestiary'' (1971; 2009) *''The Sand Artist'' (1978) *''The Haunted Lift'' (1982) *''The Lonely Scarecrow'' (1983) *''To the Ancestral North: Poems for an Autobiography'' (1983) *''The Sense of the Visit'' (1984) *''The House at Night'' (1988) *''Throwback: Poems towards an Autobiography'' (1988) *''Strange Attractors'' (University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1995) *''A Certain State of Mind – An Anthology of Classic, Modern and Contemporary Japanese Haiku in Translation with Essays and Reviews'' (University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1995) *''Broad Daylight: Poems East and West'' (University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996) *''The Patient Obituarist'' (University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996) *''How to Cook Women'' (University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996) *''Tanka Tales'' (University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996) *''Collected Shorter Poems'': ''Omens of Disaster'' (Vol. 1) and ''Once and for All'' (Vol. 2) (University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996) *''An Extended Breath'' (University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996) *''Burning Giraffes'' (University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996) *''Measures of Time'' (University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996) *''Pikadon: An Epic Poem'' (University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1997) *''He Dreamed He was a Butterfly'' (1997) *''Marsden Bay'' (2008) *''Home Thoughts'' (2011)

Plays

*''True Mystery of the Nativity'' (first published 1956) *''The Prince of Homburg'' (first published 1959) *''The Physicists'' (first produced 1963, first published 1963) *''The Meteor'' (first produced 1966, first published 1973) *''Play Strindberg'' (first produced 1992) *''Two German Drama Classics'' (Heinrich von Kleist: ''The Prince of Homburg''; Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller: ''Don Carlos''. Transl. James Kirkup. University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg, 1996) *''True Misteries'' and ''A Chronicle Play of Peterborough Cathedral'' (1 vol. Transl. James Kirkup. University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg, 1996)

Autobiography

*''The Only Child: An Autobiography of Infancy'' (1957) *''Sorrows, Passions and Alarms: An Autobiography of Childhood'' (1959) *''What is English Poetry?'' (1968) *''I, of All People: An Autobiography of Youth'' (1990) *''A Poet Could Not But be Gay'' (1991) *''Me All Over'' (1993) *''A Child of the Tyne'' (incl. ''The Only Child: An Autobiography of Infancy'' and ''Sorrow, Passions and Alarms: An Autobiography of Childhood''; University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996)

Criticism

*''Diversions: A Celebration for James Kirkup on His Eight''

Description and travel

*''These horned islands: a journal of Japan'' (1962) *''Tokyo'' (1966) *''Streets of Asia'' (1969) *''Japan behind the Fan'' (1970) *''Heaven, Hell and Hara-Kiri'' (1974) Kirkup held the Atlantic Award for Literature from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1950; he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1962; he won the Japan P.E.N. Club Prize for Poetry in 1965; and was awarded the

Scott Moncrieff Prize The Scott Moncrieff Prize, named after the translator C. K. Scott Moncrieff, is an annual £2,000 literary prize for French to English translation, awarded to one or more translators every year for a full-length work deemed by the Translators Asso ...

for Translation in 1992. In the mid-1990s he won the Japanese Festival Foundation Prize for ''A Book of Tanka''. He died in Andorra on 10 May 2009.

Legacy

Kirkup's papers are held at Yale and South Shields.

References

External links

The James Kirkup Collection in South Shields www.thejameskirkupcollection.co.ukBBC News story on the Gay News blasphemy trialArticle 12 May 2009 in ''The Journal'', NewcastleUniversity of Salzburg Press (now Poetry Salzburg), Kirkup's major publisher in the mid-1990s

– ''Daily Telegraph'' obituary
James Kirkup
– ''Times'' Obituary

by Richard Canning and James Fergusson in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'' * James Kirkup Papers. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. * Archival material at {{DEFAULTSORT:Kirkup, James 1918 births 2009 deaths British conscientious objectors English-language haiku poets Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature English LGBT poets Bisexual men Bisexual writers English male poets 20th-century English poets English male journalists English translators German–English translators English male dramatists and playwrights People from South Shields Writers from Tyne and Wear 20th-century English male writers 20th-century British translators Alumni of King's College, Newcastle LGBT academics 20th-century LGBT people